Blockbusters Battling for Memorial Day

Both 20th Century Fox and DreamWorks have chosen Memorial Day 2009 to release what each hopes will be its first 3-D blockbuster. DreamWorks' "Monsters vs. Aliens" will be up against a potentially scarier creature: "Avatar," a science-fiction thriller from James Cameron (Titanic).

The nation's largest exhibitors, however, say they won't have room for both. As many as 5,000 screens are expected to be equipped to show 3-D movies by 2009, up from 700 today. But DreamWorks and Fox each want all of them. DreamWorks Animation Chief Executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, who has been campaigning to get theater operators to accelerate the conversion to 3-D, has told people that he needs 6,000 screens for "Monsters vs. Aliens."

"I would not want to be put in the position of choosing one over the other," said Mike Campbell, CEO of Regal Entertainment Group, the nation's largest theater chain. "I want both — just not on the same day."

Movie studios are increasingly planting their flags further ahead in time to secure the most desirable weekends. That's partly because of the high stakes: Production and marketing costs for the average movie now top $100 million. A movie's opening weekend can account for as much as one-fourth of the box-office take domestically. And Memorial Day traditionally kicks off the lucrative summer season.

Neither DreamWorks nor Fox would comment, but people close to each studio doubt that each would back away from the date anytime soon.